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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907865">Fatherhood and Other Daunting Trials</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald'>StopitGerald</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AFAB Hawke, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Feel-good, Fluff, Grey Wardens, Nonbinary Hawke (Dragon Age), Parenthood, Pregnancy, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, happy fic, parenting anxiety, worries about parenthood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:08:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,743</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Just three short pieces of my three OCs, their husbands, and the families they raise.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alistair/Female Warden (Dragon Age), Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age), Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Fatherhood and Other Daunting Trials</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Playing a little loose w grey warden canon ok I’m not about to do 7 days of research to write 1700 words LMAO- in all seriousness, this is just supposed to be cute :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alistair is a good father.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t been sure he would be, given his lack of skill with children, his lack of knowledge in parenting. Considering he never thought he could be a father, he’s as unprepared as ever when his son is born.</p><p> </p><p>Rhys looks angelic, sweaty and red, cradling a tiny bundle against her chest, beckoning him over to see their son, swaddled and warm. Tiny, dark eyes new to the world. He has her brown-black eyes, her pale hair, but that’s his nose, his chin, looking back at him. Their son is the picture of them, everything they are, together.</p><p> </p><p>And he is everything the both of them have ever wanted.</p><p> </p><p>They’d married young, and expected that would be the peak of their domestic life, as much as they both hated the prospect. Rhys was the Commander, and tasked herself with ending the calling, so she, and her fellow wardens, could live out peaceful ends with their loved ones. And he was the Warden Alistair, he was supposed to stand firm and strong beside her, a symbol of strength and protection.</p><p> </p><p>And he still is, in a way, but he is a symbol, now, for his newborn son- to protect him, to be strong for him. To love him always.</p><p> </p><p>They sleep with their son cradled between them, holding his tired, beautiful wife, and staring at the unblinking, curious eyes of his brand new son.</p><p> </p><p>In the morningtime, they name him Duncan, after the man who’d raised Alistair.</p><p> </p><p>Rhys never had a father, she’d lived in the circle all her life, and well, Alistair’s patriarchal history is more than a little complicated.</p><p> </p><p>But Alistair himself? He’s a wonderful father.</p><p> </p><p>They stumble through his growth like any other set of first time parents, and though they grace him with no siblings, though they live quiet and modest, tucked away in the Hinterlands, Alistair knows no finer man than the one his son slowly becomes.</p><p> </p><p>—-</p><p> </p><p>When Dawn was born, Cullen cried for five minutes.</p><p> </p><p>He couldn’t help himself, staring at his newborn, baby daughter. Little tufts of curly black hair, like her mother, and big, golden eyes, like her father. </p><p> </p><p>The midwife and their friends had quietly excused themselves. Left him alone with his wife and daughter. He’d settled on his knees and rested his head against Orianna’s arm, where she cradled the babe against her breast. </p><p> </p><p>He’d watched, completely enraptured with the tiny feet, the round eyes, the way her itty-bitty fingers curled around his index. And he’d wept against his wife as they held her.</p><p> </p><p>Cullen picked the name, Orianna tiredly agreed. </p><p> </p><p>His wife had been through things that he’d never expect anyone else to live through, to be able to withstand. He’d seen her suffer through excruciating pain, and not only survive, but claw her way out as if it was nothing to her- teeth bared and eyes aflame.</p><p> </p><p>But this? This had worn her out. </p><p> </p><p>Then, their son, three years later. Little Dawn up on two legs, babbling and curious. His little lioness. Curly, bobbing black hair close to her head, riding her father’s shoulders across skyhold. </p><p> </p><p>Orianna insists that they name him Cullen Rutherford The Second. On account of his blonde locks and eyes just like his sisters, just like his fathers. And Cullen has to admit, the boy looks exactly like him. </p><p> </p><p>It is an affectionate gesture, from someone who’s as bad at grandeur as his wife- and he accepts as he swaddles the junior to his senior. Kisses his little forehead. </p><p> </p><p>This birth had been easier, at least, up until Dawn is let in by an exasperated, but joyful Cassandra, and then the rest of their entourage.</p><p> </p><p>Iron Bull spends hours with their children, engaging them in conversation as if he actually understands their babble and cooing, Cullen has to hide his dorky laugh every time he hears it.</p><p> </p><p>Aunt Sera, Uncle Varric- even Leiliana.</p><p> </p><p>They’re all there, watching his children grow a little every day. </p><p> </p><p>He still yearns for a quiet place in the country, just them, living peaceful and picturesque, but this- his children more safe than any he's ever known, well educated by people from all walks of life, he supposes it’s not so bad at all.</p><p> </p><p>His son turns out to be a mage, his daughter does not.</p><p> </p><p>When he sees what looks like a younger, mirror image of himself practicing with little bolts of electricity between his adolescent fingers, he can’t help the queasiness in his stomach, but he watches him- watches him train with his mother- with Dorian, even. (Though he cannot say that qwells his fears)</p><p> </p><p>And his son turns out just fine. Well tempered and calm, slow to anger, quick to reason. There is no danger in his eyes, there is no danger in him, like he’d had to teach himself about Orianna.</p><p> </p><p>When he sees his son make the flowers in the gardens bloom, he knows-</p><p> </p><p>This boy will change the world, someday.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p> </p><p>There’s 6 children.</p><p> </p><p>Three of them were rescued from a slave operation running out of Lowtown, three eleven children. 10, 7, and 4 years old. Siblings, all of them tawny-haired, with big brown eyes and tan skin. A girl and two, younger boys. Sino, Ari’neh, and Kedran, respectively. The girl knows magic, and Anders is more than excited to help her learn to cultivate it, to use it correctly, to defend herself.</p><p> </p><p>She’d tried, only 10, to defend herself and her baby brothers, but the slavers had overtaken them, there’s no telling how many children didn’t make it.</p><p> </p><p>Anders doesn't know what to do with them after he, Hawke, and Varric finish clearing out the slaver’s den.</p><p> </p><p>Usually there’s somewhere to send them, the slave children, but they’re elves, orphans, and one of them is a mage. Anders knows they’d be killed, or separated. So he brings them to Hawke’s estate.</p><p> </p><p>They’re. Well. Surprised.</p><p> </p><p>Most would be, if they woke up to three elven children sitting cross legged in front of the fire, eating pastries and drinking fruit juice. Bodahn hurriedly tries to explain, “Ah! Messere! Anders came by and he-“</p><p> </p><p>But they need no further explanation. They understand. </p><p> </p><p>Their partner has a terrible soft spot for children, and so do they.</p><p> </p><p>So they stay.</p><p> </p><p>Then there is Boathen- the little dwarven boy.</p><p> </p><p>Hawke picks the name, he is not even two when they find him. And Anders spends his time keeping the child healthy and rearing him while Hawke tries to see if they can find his real parents.</p><p> </p><p>After four weeks, it’s apparent he’d simply been abandoned. They’d found him in Darktown, swaddled and left behind rubble in an alleyway, his tiny cries had alerted them, and they’d found him there, tiny and cold.</p><p> </p><p>That made four.</p><p> </p><p>The elven bunch was more than happy, and very curious about a new baby brother.</p><p> </p><p>With Orana and Bodahn there, it wasn’t too hard to keep the children supervised. None of them were troublesome. thank the maker, Hawke had said, for that. The older children being far too happy to simply have a home, and the younger ones too young to cause any such mischief.</p><p> </p><p>Then Sylvie, then Avan.</p><p> </p><p>Sylvie was a mage child, being sent to the circle. Against their better judgment, and knowing the horrors of the gallows, Hawke had pushed to jump the caravan moving the mages- and they’d found her- terrified and small.</p><p> </p><p>She is deaf, they discover, with huge eyes and little, rounded ears. But she is brilliant, and already understands much about her magic, despite being not even 6. </p><p> </p><p>And Avan- he had been 12 when they found him, an orphan. He had been trying to sell the very clothes off of his back in Lowtown, they’d found him getting kicked around by merchant’s sons, thinking him simply the son of a beggar. Anders had intervened at the boys cruelty, and sent them running.</p><p> </p><p>Hawke had pieced together quickly that the boy was not simply unfortunate, he was homeless, and an orphan.</p><p> </p><p>They’d invited him to their home, Anders telling him they’d have other children, his age, ones who would not be quite so mean. The boy had been skittish, distrustful. It only made sense. He’d turned them down, but Anders had crushed a small piece of paper with Hawke’s estate number into his hand.</p><p> </p><p>And then he’d shown to their address in the dead of night, in the rain, with skinned knees, crying. And Anders carried him inside, sat him down, and entertained him and the other children with whimsical tales while he attended to the boy’s knees. And Hawke, resting in an armchair, watching their lover with their newfound children, smiles at him over Anders’ shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Anders had always romanticized family, he never had one, and being a warden, never thought he could. And Hawke, having lost all of their family, is more than ready to welcome this new one with an open heart.</p><p> </p><p>Their nights spent together are even more heart-stirring, grabbing one another under the sheets with passionate kisses- knowing their children sleep peaceful and safe down the hall.</p><p> </p><p>It is a year later when Hawke realizes they are, well. With child.</p><p> </p><p>Coming to terms with what that means for their identity is the first thing they grapple with- but then. Anders.</p><p> </p><p>How?</p><p> </p><p>He’s a warden- it shouldn’t be possible. But they’d never laid with anyone else, not since they’d met him.</p><p> </p><p>When they walk into the hall, they see Sylvie, and she walks up to them, those eyes so wide, so full of life. And she presses a tiny palm to Hawke’s tummy, blinking slowly.</p><p> </p><p>“Little Baby?”</p><p> </p><p>She signs, face growing hopeful, and Hawke can’t suppress their smile as they nod, as they kneel and sign back, </p><p> </p><p>“No telling daddy,”</p><p> </p><p>Sylvie’s face grows deadly serious and she nods with the vigor of a new Templar recruit before running off.</p><p> </p><p>In the end, Hawke tells their partner, and yes. He is confused. There is tension. But it doesn’t take long, not for someone as clever, not for someone as thirsty for knowledge as Anders. </p><p> </p><p>He discovers that Justice, his harboring of a spirit all these years, may have distorted the taint, just like how his nightmares of darkspawn are few and far between.</p><p> </p><p>And they give birth to a tiny little girl named Patience, with blonde hair and big, amber eyes. And Anders has never been more thankful for the spirit inside of him.</p><p>
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